Conflict
The engine: who wants what, what stands in the way, and on how many fronts at once.
- story conventions
- reference
- story-convention
The opposition that makes narrative move: character against character, against circumstance, against institution, against self. Mature films usually run several layers at once and let the inner conflict decide the outer one.
What to look for
Name the want (what the character pursues) and the need (what would actually resolve them); the distance between the two is the film's real subject.
Canonical cases
Marion in Psycho (1960): outer conflict (the theft, the escape) resolved before she dies — she decides to return the money — which is what makes the murder structurally obscene. Alice in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974): the want is the singing career promised by Alice — the prologue; the need is autonomy, and the film keeps asking whether the dream and the need are the same thing.
Sources
Bordwell & Thompson — Film Art on narrative causality.